Understanding where things went wrong for the Buffalo Sabres

The 2023-24 season for the Buffalo Sabres has finally come to an end. It’s weird because it felt like the season flew by but at the same time there were some long stretches of darkness. They’ll finish the season with 84 points and miss the playoffs by at least five points.

That’s a considerable step back from a 91-point 2022-23 campaign and missing the postseason by one point. There was a lot of promise entering the season. All of that goodwill has evaporated after this season. It also resulted in Don Granato losing his job this morning and setting the Sabres down the path of searching for a new head coach.

I feel that it’s important to fully digest this season and understand where things went right. While at the same, acknowledging what went right and can be built upon next year.

Final Numbers

Let’s start by looking at where the Sabres finished at 5 on 5 in the numbers. In Evolving Hockey’s model, they finished down in shot and expected goal share compared to last season. They did improve in overall goal differential.

	2022-23	2023-24
Expected Goals	48.87% (21st)	47.41% (25th)
Shot Share	51.36% (15th)	50.04% (18th)
Goal Differential	49.02% (19th)	52.23% (13th)

Breaking it down another level deeper, we can start to see where one of the primary issues with this team comes into the picture. Their offensive numbers were down, but their defense improved.

	2022-23	2023-24
Expected Goals For	2.77 (14th)	2.48 (24th)
Expected Goals Against	2.90 (27th)	2.75 (26th)
Goals For	2.96 (4th)	2.62 (11th)
Goals Against	3.08 (28th)	2.39 (11th)

The Sabres scoring and offensive shot quality regressed as it was expected. Especially, when it came to finishing. Ideally, you would like the expected goals not to drop as heavily as they did. We know that the rush offense was down this year, but it was their inability to get to the middle of the ice this season that was difficult to understand.

It was essentially the same roster at forward as it was last season and they settled for more outside shots than getting to middle like they did last year. Where they shot the puck from last year is the prime location to have the majority of their shot attempts.

The defensive side of their game improved, however, it seemed to come at the cost of their offensive output. For this team to get where they need to go they have to be good at both ends of the ice. That was one of the things that resulted in the Sabres moving on from Granato. He didn’t show an ability to coach positive results at both ends of the ice in three years behind the bench.

The solution that he utilized for his club this year was to be more of a forechecking team compared to last season.

They reduced their transition offense because teams took away the neutral zone and didn’t let them get out and run. The problem with moving more toward a dump-and-chase team is that they were one of the worst recovery teams in the league in All Three Zone’s data.

All the Sabres did for the majority of the season was turn the puck over by dumping it into the offensive zone. They were unable to regain possession and were chasing the puck again.

What Went Wrong

While everything that I just went through is a problem that needs to be corrected, the Sabres could still have been a playoff team if one more thing went their way. This isn’t a list of excuses. To fully analyze this season, all of the factors should be accounted for.

Injuries

The injury situation for this club was difficult to overcome right off the jump. Missing Jack Quinn for the first three months of the year was a bigger deal than most people thought it would be.

He wasn’t the only one that missed significant time. Here is a list of players who missed more than five games due to injury this season:

Jack Quinn – 55
Mattias Samuelsson – 41
Zemgus Girgensons – 19
Jordan Greenway – 15
Tage Thompson – 11
Jeff Skinner – 8
Henri Jokiharju – 8
Alex Tuch – 7
Owen Power – 6

Tage only missed 11 games, but the wrist injury that he suffered early in the season lingered through the year. That wasn’t all that he dealt with. There were reports of a back and lower-body injury that hampered him throughout the year.

Over the last month of the season, he returned to the type of player that we expected him to be early in the year. I have zero concerns about Tage moving forward. He’s the top center on this team and showed growth in the defensive zone while maintaining a good offensive output.

Jeff Skinner never recovered from his injury stretch after the Nathan MacKinnon hit. Alex Tuch didn’t seem to get healthy until the middle of the season and even Dylan Cozens struggled to find himself after being hurt in a fight early in the campaign.

Power Play

The biggest thing that held the Sabres back this year was their abysmal power play system. Their shot quality with the man advantage was ranked 31st in the league and their goals for per 60 minutes was 29th.

The power play was not that good for most of last season, but their finishing rate dropped from 4th in the league to 29th. It brought the lack of creativity in their system to the forefront and didn’t bail them out in games where the 5 on 5 offense didn’t come through.

General Manager

Adams holds some responsibility for how this season turned out to be. He made two additions to his roster last summer and neither worked out how he envisioned.

Erik Johnson was unable to be effective on the ice and dragged this team down. I can’t speak to how much of an impact he made off the ice, but I’m sure it wasn’t enough to outweigh his shortcomings on the ice.

It got so bad for them that Granato had to bench Johnson until Adams was able to work out a trade to the Philadelphia Flyers at the deadline.

Connor Clifton found his stride in the second half of the year but is still nothing more than a third-pair defender. He’ll be on the team moving forward and the hope is that he can sheltered in that role.

The other area that Adams failed is going with Devon Levi as the number one goaltender going into the season. That type of move didn’t work in the past and didn’t pan out for the Sabres either. It’s difficult to say how different the first month of the season would have gone if Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Eric Comrie were the tandem.

The fact of the matter is still that he went into the season with a plan in goal that was a long shot to work and it contributed to his club getting off to a slow start. The good news is that Luukkonen established himself as the Sabres starter moving forward on the back of a breakout season.

Conclusion

Adams now has the responsibility to find the right coach for this group moving forward. Logic would dictate that he should be looking for someone with NHL experience, but we’ll see where he ends up landing on that. It’ll be a fun storyline to follow over the next few weeks and beyond.

Alongside figuring out the coach, he needs to make the right moves to get this team over the top. The talent is there on the roster and they’re not far away. There are intelligent people in the Sabres front office who should be able to right the ship before it runs aground once again.